Cooties
by Rebirth of the Phoenix
Summary: Life was so much easier when boys had cooties. Sokka centric. Zutara. One shot.


Sokka prided himself on his unwavering ability to remain calm in the face of danger. Others may have raised their eyebrows when they heard of this apparent trait but Sokka didn't care, he had proof. Take his sister for example. Katara happened to provide Sokka with most of his I'm-going-to-be-grey-haired-before-I-reach-my-twentieth-birthday situations.

For example, let us recall the first moment Sokka experienced a Katara-induced headache:

One fine day when he still lived in the South Pole and both his parents were around, Sokka had decided to take his pet polar bear dog Fuzzy-uzzums (Katara's choice of name… honestly) for a walk. The boy had obviously panicked when he could not find his faithful hound and had yelled himself hoarse searching the village for him. When he had run to his mother beside himself with worry she had mentioned that Katara had took Fuzzy-uzzums out with her earlier that afternoon.

So Sokka set out once again, a little miffed that nobody had told him earlier that Katara had the dog, this time in search of his five year old sister too. Ten minutes later, at the edge of the village, Sokka spotted Fuzzy-uzzums sleeping outside a tent, the brown flap of a door closed and whispering voices coming from within.

Raising his eyebrows Sokka proceeded forward and took a seat on the snow next to his faithful mutt. Fuzzy-uzzums peered out of one black eye before rolling onto his side, all the better to receive a tummy rub. The boy sat there patiently and listened to the voices drifting from the tent, which he identified as belonging to Katara and a boy named Tuk. Sokka rather liked Tuk, he had a good head on his shoulders and he was just a few weeks older than himself.

"Gosh, your head is hard! What have you got stones for brains?" That was Katara alright. Sokka wondered vaguely what the pair were doing.

"Yeah well you nearly poked my eye out with your nose."

"It's not my fault! I couldn't see where I was headed!"

A terrible sort of comprehension came over Sokka. His six and a bit years on the planet had not left him completely clueless -he remembered playing this 'game' before.

"Well," that was Tuk's voice again. "Maybe we should try with our eyes open this time."

"Okay."

Sokka counted three heartbeats of horrified silence before he scrambled to his feet and whipped open the tent's covering. "No!"

There, sat three feet away from (horrible, snot-faced) Tuk, was his sweet, naïve, baby sister. Both children were leaning towards each other, although their bodies seemed most reluctant to move and as a result Sokka could practically see their necks starting to lengthen.

Upon hearing his shout, Katara and Tuk turned to face Sokka, eyes wide open and lips puckered into an imitation of fish.

Sokka's reaction had been rather typical of him, and resulted in Katara being dragged across the village by her arm while Sokka yelled loudly for his mother.

"Mom!" Sokka whined, finally arriving home. "Katara was kissing a boy!"

"That's nice dear," came the absent reply as his mother finished making dinner.

Feeling very frustrated (why did no one else see the problem here!?) Sokka hauled his baby sister over to the sleeping area and sat her down on the furs. Her large blue eyes watched in interest as Sokka paced back and forth in front of her, though she quickly became bored and settled on sucking her thumb instead.

"Katara," said girl jumped at his voice. "Kissing is a _bad_ thing, do you understand me?"

The little girl nodded a few times before the movement quickly turned into a negative shaking of the head. "But Mama and Papa kiss all the time. Are they bad?"

"Um, well you see," Sokka glanced at his mother and caught sight of the necklace at her throat. "Kissing's okay if you're married but if you do it before you're married then it's bad!"

"Why?"

"Because it's against the rules."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"But why is it?"

"Because…" Sokka floundered, "because boys have cooties!"

"Cooties?"

"Yes!" Sokka said triumphantly. "Everyone knows that boys have cooties until they get married, that's why you can't kiss one!"

"Sokka? What are cooties?"

"Oh I don't think you need to know about all that, Katara."

"But I wanna!"

Sokka watched in horror as his little sister removed the thumb from her mouth, puffed up her cheeks and steadily turned red, a sure sign that a temper tantrum was coming on.

"Okay, okay! I'll tell you!" It was a relief when Katara's face returned to it's normal size and colour. "Well then, cooties, let's see. Um they're like little bugs that you get from kissing a boy because they live on boy's… lips! Yeah on their lips! And if you get cooties then all your hair falls out and you turn blue."

Katara tiled her head. "Really?"

Sokka nodded determinedly. "Yep."

"All boys have cooties?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

Katara returned her thumb to her mouth and looked deep in thought for a few moments before she took the digit from her mouth, stood from the mats and brushed her dress off. She stared at her big brother for a few seconds before screaming shrilly and running away.

Sokka was stunned as he watched his apparently terrified sister dash from the tent and was about to chase after her until what happened next froze him in his tracks.

"Sokka's got cooties! Sokka's got cooties! He kissed me goodnight yesterday and now I'm gonna loose my hair and turn blue!"

So maybe having his sister running around the village shrieking and in tears wasn't a successful outcome, and the look he received off his mother definitely meant he had some explaining to do.

But did he panic? No he did not.

Which brings us back to the present, more that ten years since that little escapade. Life was good. Simple as that. The war was over and Team Avatar had come out on top and the Fire Lord had come out… well dead. Now the Fire Nation was under the watchful eye of Iroh while Zuko (who, Sokka had to admit, was a big asset to the group after the failed invasion on the Day of Black Sun) watched carefully and learned everything he would need to know about ruling and leading a nation.

So yes, in Sokka's eyes life was pretty swell. There were no maniac Princesses to run from and no more crazy adventures to get mixed up in. Nope, all there was to do now was to help rebuild the world, be an ambassador to the South Pole and walk through the Fire Palace at his own leisure, take in the Fire Nation culture, look at the portraits and walk in on the soon-to-be Fire Lord kissing your sister…

Wait…

What!?

And just like that Sokka's peachy life came crashing down around him, all thanks to his devious little sister.

"Katara! What are you doing?"

The disgruntled look Sokka received was a lot more threatening now that Katara had lost her baby fat. "Nothing now that you're here."

"B-but I thought you hated him!" Sokka pointed and accusing finger at Zuko, who seemed rather put out that they had been interrupted.

"So? You hated him too!"

"Yeah but I'm not kissing him!"

"That's a relief," Katara smirked. "What's the big deal?"

Sokka very nearly resorted to stamping his foot on the marbled ground. "Have you remembered nothing I've taught you? What about cooties!?"

There was a prolonged moment of incredulous silence which was broken (surprisingly enough) by Zuko snorting. "Cooties?"

"Yes cooties! I told Katara when she was five that kissing boys before you were married is bad. Bad!"

Katara was lost in thought for a moment before she smiled. "I remember that. You gave me nightmares for a week. Honestly Sokka, I think we're all old enough to know that boys don't have cooties. Besides I've still got all my hair and I'm not blue."

Sokka scowled at her teasing tone of voice. "Oh just you wait Katara, you'll see soon enough and then you'll wish you'd waited until you got married." He was clutching a straws and everyone knew it.

"Well," Zuko drawled, drawing the attention of the other two. "I doubt a few more months is going to make much difference."

"A few more… what?" Sokka looked between his now blushing sister and the smug looking Prince. His eyes seemed to automatically slide to Katara's neck where (to his ineffable and unimaginable horror) a strip of crimson silk was tied, adorned with a golden charm depicting a crescent moon curved around a sun.

Faced with the knowledge that his only sister was one day going to be Fire Lady, and that a member of the (evil, EVIL!) male species had managed to somehow brainwash her into accepting a marriage proposal, Sokka could honestly say he did not scream, shout, cry or do any of those other panicked actions that lesser mortals may have done.

He fainted instead.

* * *

**I love Sokka, and this is really my first time writing from his point of view and it was rather fun. I'm having a major block with my other stories (and trying to revise for half a dozen exams coming up in the next three weeks) so this was a nice change, even if it has been sitting unfinished on my computer for months on end.**

**Hope you enjoyed.**


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